Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(69)

‘She’s up to something,’ Shira said simply.

‘Leyla?’ I failed to keep the scepticism out of my voice this time. ‘Is it all the toys she builds for children that makes you suspicious, or the fact that she’s still almost a child herself?’

‘She sneaks around.’ Shira reached for a fresh cooling cloth. ‘She leaves the harem and I don’t know where she’s going. I can’t follow her. But you can.’

‘You want to know where she’s going?’ It was hard to take her seriously when she was making accusations against someone two years younger than us. ‘You’re worried about Leyla?’

‘Of course not.’ Shira rolled her eyes. ‘I’m worried about her brother.’ Prince Rahim. Ah. Now, that didn’t sound so stupid. ‘Rumour has it he’s in a great deal of favour with his father the Sultan.’ That much was true. I remembered what the Sultan had said about Rahim over duck that night.

‘You think he might have designs on the throne.’ I suddenly saw where her train of thought was going. There was no love lost between Rahim and Kadir. I just didn’t know if he hated him enough to snatch away his wives. But if he did, Shira had to be a target.

‘Oh, look at that, you’re not as dumb as you act.’ Shira draped the new damp cloth over her brow; it sent rivulets of water across her eyebrows and down her cheeks. ‘The rumour was that before Kadir proved he was able to conceive an heir’ – she ran her hand along her swollen middle – ‘the Sultan was close to taking the throne from him. Rahim was said to be the favourite. Why else is he back in court when he’s a commander in Iliaz?’ That name sparked a pain in my side where the bullet scar was. Iliaz was a sore reminder of being shot. ‘If he does have designs on the throne and he’s using his sister’s knowledge of the harem to get to it, I want to know. And there must be something you want in return for information on Leyla and her brother.’

Leyla had helped me when I needed to get free of the harem. She’d guided me in my first days in the harem. She’d saved me from Kadir’s wives. She was as close to a friend as I was going to get inside these walls.

And I wasn’t the girl who betrayed friends any more. Only Shira didn’t know that. She knew me as the girl from Dustwalk who left Tamid bleeding in the sand. Who would do what she needed to get what she wanted.

But the beginnings of an idea were sparking in my mind. I’d been looking for a way to shed my guard. This might be one.

‘What if I needed a distraction? For the guards.’

‘A distraction like a pregnant Sultima pretending to go into childbirth weeks early?’ She caught on quick.

‘And folk in Dustwalk used to say you were as dumb as you were pretty.’ I couldn’t keep it in, petty as it was. I was still angry with her about my hair.

‘I made it through sixteen years in that town with a whole lot less trouble than you did,’ Shira pointed out. ‘Why do you need a distraction anyway? Are you trying to slip off to see a certain cripple of yours hiding in the palace? Because you ought to know, you might not get as warm a welcome as you’re hoping for.’

‘Tamid is none of your business.’ My thumb jabbed at the metal under my arm painfully. It was almost a tic now. She’d found my sore spot. And the smile playing over her mouth said she knew it.

‘Oh, so you do know he’s here.’ She saw the answer written all over my face. ‘They took both of us. Because you left us.’

‘You wanted to go, because Fazim was done with you.’ That blow landed so hard that I almost regretted it the second the stricken look bloomed over her face. But she’d hit first. It was a bad idea to play chicken with someone who’d known you your whole life. Nobody came out a winner.

Shira pulled the mask of Sultima back on. ‘Say you’ll bring me information about Leyla and I’ll be your distraction.’ She stuck out one hand, heavy with new gold bangles. One of them no doubt already traded to Sam for the scissors that had cut my hair. They clattered impatiently together. ‘Do we have a deal?’

I took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Let’s go.’

*

I had to admit Shira wasn’t a half-bad actress. Her screams were so convincing I worried a few times that fate really was cruel enough to send her into labour the same moment she’d been faking it. She sure slumped on me heavily enough as we staggered through the gates of the harem. Her cries and sobs covered my words to the guard waiting for me. He was young and his eyes went wide with panic as his Sultima collapsed into his arms.

And just like that, Shira had shifted from my shoulder to his, grabbing all his attention and weighing him down as I staggered back, out of his view. For a second his head turned to follow me, remembering his duty. But a new scream from Shira quickly drew him back.

And then I was gone, running as fast as I could. Shira’s screams faded behind me as I bolted across the courtyard and into the halls of the palace toward the mosaic of Hawa.

*

I’d been told that my eyes were the colour of the sea on a bright day. That they were the shade of the desert sky. Foreigner’s eyes. Traitor eyes.

But the truth was I’d never seen anything exactly the same colour as my eyes until I met Noorsham. We had our father’s eyes.

It was a foreign feeling for those same blue eyes to watch me from where Bahadur sat in the iron circle as I descended the steps into the palace vaults. He didn’t speak when I reached the edge of the circle. Neither did I.